“Will you come in just a few minutes? It is tea hour.”
Quincy hesitated clumsily; grew aware of his awkwardness, and agreed, in order to conceal it.
They were before the Deering House. It looked very like a big, paste-board box, dropped directly upon the street by some careless errand-boy. There was no lawn before it. Two low steps led to a tiny porch, scarcely wider than the door, yet big enough for two banks of flower-pots. These were now barren and frozen. The house was of white frame and square. The two windows of the façade seemed to have been punched upon it as an afterthought.
Mr. Deering unlocked the door and Quincy was led across a narrow hall into the library. The room was spacious and bare. The center table had no cover; the three windows had no curtains; the walls were entirely occupied with plain book-racks, the height of the ceiling. A wood fire burned in the hearth, before which lay a tiger skin. This touch of Oriental glamor in the room’s prim contour stood out. With the exception of one upholstered arm-chair, the furniture was plain. Domestic rugs pieced out the soft-wood floor. There was a small gas stove in the corner of two book shelves. On it were a pewter kettle, several cups and a decanter of spirits.
“Sit down, and let me brew you some tea,” said Mr. Deering.
Quincy complied. “This is where you work?”
“Yes. When I close the doors, I am in an inviolable castle.”
The boy remarked that on the center table lay a low pile of unused papers, a single pen and, in the corner, a small rack containing half a dozen books. Even the table seemed impoverished and empty. No artistic wealth of abandon was about it. Meantime, Professor Deering was boiling water.
“You must come here often, Mr. Burt,” he spoke as he leaned over the little table.
Quincy liked the massive stretch of his back, the wide, high head poised gracefully upon a short, thick neck and closely covered, like a cap, with hair.